5 Things to Know Before you Buy the LG G5 or the Samsung Galaxy S7 Smartphone

This year MWC was exhausting, we saw so many smartphone launches from brands, some brands we heard for the first time while most of them were familiar. It was the year our team went out to Barcelona to cover the event from grounds, rather than seating across the world. Now that there is room for a breather, we can talk about the flagship wars. You’ve read about them, watched the first impressions. Now it’s time to pass the judgment that which flagship tickles fancy and would be enough for you to spend a few hundred bucks to get one. Typically, every year the flagship iterations are so similar that it’s harder to choose between them. However, this year two major brands –Samsung & LG-hail from the same country has drawn a quite solid line, thus making things a bit easier to some extent. Their handsets Galaxy S7 and G5 gets in the ring for this year to fight the war.

The Rundown

Admit it! It’s impossible to compare smartphones with a head-to-head comparison of the specs. Earlier that used to be the way to significantly determine, which smartphone is better. With recent changes, most of the flagships, however, are seen sporting similar internals. Though still significant these specs aren’t always the deal breaker they have been thought of. Still, worth noting, thus without further ado, let’s see them.

You might have figured some similarities among these two contenders already. Like RAM, Processor, storage configurations, biometrics and fast charging. They even have size and weights measured pretty close. But despite quite a similarity in specs, there are some significant differences that need to be addressed. And thus, we are looking into them closely.

Design

Users have become aware of the design and they no longer like to settle for something that just works and doesn’t look and feel good in the hand. A slogan, Never Settle, which was hyped by the Chinese smartphone maker, OnePlus, around two years back when the company introduced OnePlus. Back to the track, Samsung has more or less nailed in design aesthetics last year with Galaxy S6, so they decided very less to change this time around. Though they did make slight tweaks here and there to make Galaxy S7 & its bigger sibling, the Galaxy S7 Edge easier to hold by curving the edges on the rear side as well. Whereas LG went back to the drawing board and made a jump by introducing a semi-modular smartphone, that’s the name given my company. It is claimed to be first such phone of a kind. If you have followed the design of LG’s flagship handsets from 2013 with the G2, you’ll see the power and volume keys on the rear side, just below the camera module. While it has been replaced with the biometric sensor, which is the first time company has introduced the fingerprint sensor on their device. Not leather back, the G5 sports a full metal design with room to replace the battery. The unique modular design empowers the phone to replace the battery whenever needed. Moreover, the company is also set to give an extra battery when the sale starts in April. What’s more interesting that you can attach up to five accessories to your G5 in order to make it more than just a phone, these accessories are listed as LG Friends.

Display

Making out differences between the screens is almost too easy. They both have Quad HD resolutions, though; do make a note that LG G5 with its larger 5.3-inch display has lower pixel density than the Samsung Galaxy S7’s 5.1-inch screen. While that is barely noticeable to most eyes, it is not where their greatest difference lies. The Samsung has forever been using the OLED technology, specifically AMOLED, on its premium handsets. On the other hand, the LG G5 still uses LCD technology. Typically, it wouldn’t matter much to most users, but who are looking for meticulous details. Why are these details significant here? Well, because they both are advertised as the always-on display, it would be the first time for both. The feature that Motorola has been offering on its premium and mid-range devices for quite a long time has finally arrived on the two of the most iconic brand’s smartphones. Now offering notifications even when the screen is off is a clever thing, but it’s only as better as the technology used. AMOLED is coined as the efficient display technology while it is yet to be tested how this feature would impact the battery life on an LCD panel.

Camera

The camera packages on these two handsets are also noticeably different, and again, it may be easier to compare them to megapixel count directly. But we have learned our lesson that megapixel isn’t exactly a bigger part of photography, there are other things that matter most. And that’s why Samsung intentionally reduced its megapixel count so that there would be room for larger pixels, as well as a new dual pixel Autofocus system. The outputs of this module have been seen making a round on the web if you’d like to see some of it, head over here. On the other hand, LG didn’t increased or reduced the camera sensor’s resolution count but instead has added as the second one with a wider angle lens. No, it’s not a rather 3D gimmick, we hope not, as we’ll soon see. Here we see two adversaries different focus in taking smartphone photography to another level.

Battery

Battery life has been one of the most argued topics when it comes to Samsung’s and LG’s smartphones. Samsung is taking strong criticism making last year’s flagships have non-removable batteries. The company didn’t budged on this thing in their latest flagship but has instead offered a compromise in terms of size. The brand thinks that by providing a large 3000mAh capacity battery coupled with fast wired and wireless charging, features would be enough to silence its most critics. Whereas LG thinks that offering a non-removable battery is still a better way approach for keeping your device active for a longer time. Of course, its design plays a bigger part in the whole modular story, but it was required as the battery is slightly reduced to 2800mAh.

Differently Focused

Keeping aside the hardware specs, the most significant difference between the two Android smartphone giants is in terms of the focus. It can be seen in their feature set. Compared to the LG G5 or even the Galaxy S6, the new handset Galaxy S7 is less flashy, almost subtle. The S7 is seemingly focused on stability and reliability, especially if you’re planning to take it on your road adventures. As it has been given IP 68 rating, it has the highest rating for any smartphone in terms of being waterproof and dustproof. Whether you buy it for work, or personal gift, one thing that is special about it is the camera, which sports f/1.7 aperture number. It has the largest pixels and projects an image of non-nonsense productivity.

While on the other hand we are not saying LG G5 is unreliable, or unproductive, but instead opposing its place by showing the confidence as it ventured into more experimental areas. Like owning a modular smartphone. It may not be an entirely modular phone like Google’s Project Ara. But the fact that brand is taking this semi-modular phone to consumers says a lot about their confidence. The company didn’t limit its flagship device to be just a smartphone; instead, they focused on creating something more valuable to modern users who wants more than just a smartphone to carry along. And thus, they got LG Friends accessories to play with.

Wrap Up

Users choices are more often driven by wants and needs, the budget is a definite factor for most us, but buyers will understand how that magically expands when the desire is great. Never have these companies ever drawn such a thick line to clearly states that they’ve their own thing going on. With flipping and flopping in design and various features, they have established the differences, the unique capabilities. Samsung delivers a product that is flamboyant than its predecessors, it is almost mature and serious as well. While refining the same design on its flagship, LG tries to make a bold statement with it’s new design and features, which will be taking its consumers to some exciting adventures along with the little friends. I hope you’ll jump-on according to what you want.

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